Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Anonymous on July 15, 2003, 08:23:00 PM
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Facing no other options - Parents send their unruly children out of country to specialty boarding schools
2003-07-14
by Lori Varosh
Journal Reporter
It was an excruciating decision to send their son 1,200 miles from home for an undetermined length of time to a walled center in Mexico that specializes in behavior modification.
But Virginia and Dexter Day of Redmond believed they had no other option.
They had already sent Gabe to counselors and psychiatrists. They had pressed charges when he took their car at age 13. They had tried anger-management classes, specialized drugs and the advice of a tough-love type of organization, all to no avail.
Then Redmond police called one May night in 2002, saying they'd found Gabe, then 14, clammy and blue, slumped outside a Redmond apartment building, likely overdosed on marijuana laced with embalming fluid.
``We knew we had to intervene in a more direct manner,'' Virginia Day said. ``You know you have to do something big to save your child's life.''
Parents they knew had sent their kids to the ``specialty boarding school'' called Casa by the Sea in Baja California, Mexico, and had been ecstatic with the results.
The Days researched its umbrella organization, World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, and decided to give the place a try.
Such schools for troubled kids have come under fire recently for extreme tactics -- kidnapping kids, using handcuffs and solitary confinement, for instance. But to numerous Eastside families, they've been a godsend, Day said.
``It's hard for people who haven't experienced a meltdown in their own family to appreciate the special needs these kids have,'' she said. ``Most kids end up thanking their parents for giving them an opportunity to have a life.''
Parents are forced to look to out-of-state or Central American schools, in part because it's illegal in Washington to restrain a child who is not accused of a crime.
Even if they're being sentenced for a crime, ``you can give them credit for inpatient treatment, but you can't order it,'' said Patricia Clark, presiding judge of King County Juvenile Court.
Washington parents, she said, are prohibited by statute from forcing children over the age of 12 into any kind of treatment program without their consent.
The law ``is very different from other states, and causes a whole raft of concerns and issues,'' Clark said. ``The issue is: How does a mentally-ill child or a substance-addicted child gain the necessary skills to make a decision about whether they need treatment?''
Without out-of-state schools, kids would get no help at all, said Day, who knows of a half dozen Eastside families in the Changes Parent Support Network, to which she belongs, who have sent kids to such behavioral-modification schools in recent years.
Attitude and behavior problems
Richard Browder of Bellevue is one.
His daughter had been a chronic runaway with attitude and behavior problems when he sent her to Casa by the Sea two years ago. She was 15.
At first, she complained about the food and bugs. She tried to lay a guilt trip on her parents, especially for leaving her there on her 16th birthday.
By the time she returned home 18 months later, however, she had changed, Browder said.
``We got my daughter back.''
She grew to love the Mexican Indian woman who worked in the laundry. She taught the woman English and learned Spanish in return. She learned to be of service, he said.
When she returned home, she felt lonely for a while, separated from her old drug-using crowd. But she told Browder, ``I have my values. When people come along with similar values, I'll have new friends.''
Not a week later, Browder said, she did.
Today, six months after her return, she's very focused, Browder said. She earned a nearly 3.5 grade-point average in her last high school term. She lettered in track. She got a job. She regularly attends church, and volunteers once a month to feed the homeless.
``She really has some life skills now,'' he said. ``That's the thrust of the program. It teaches them to believe in themselves.
``It's the best thing we ever did,'' said Browder, who asked his daughter if she wanted to be interviewed for this story. She declined.
`Probably die in the streets'
A criminal psychologist advised Aidan and Bernadette Maher of Kirkland to do something fast, or their son ``would probably die in the streets.''
Stealing cars had gotten him into the criminal justice system. His parents had put him in drug rehab and he'd run away. He ran away from home constantly, 13 times in as many months, Aidan Maher said.
``We realized, he's not running away from home, he's running away to do what he wanted, in other words, abuse drugs,'' Maher said. ``He was a very surly, noncommunicative, hostile young man.''
The Mahers sent him to Casa by the Sea because he was always good at languages, because living in a foreign country could deter his running and because, with lower land values and salaries, the cost is considerably lower than in the States.
Similar programs legal in states like Iowa, Utah and California can cost $4,000 a month. Because of lower land and labor costs, overseas schools are less expensive -- about $2,500 a month at Casa.
A teen escort service took him in handcuffs from the Juvenile Detention Center in Seattle to San Diego, and from there to Mexico. After a rocky start, he went on to an even stricter program at Tranquility Bay in Jamaica.
It was a full year before the Mahers saw him again.
``The boy we met three weeks ago was a completely different person,'' Maher said in late June, his voice thickening. ``He had completely turned around.''
Now 17, their son seems to have become ``a very positive young man, very at ease with himself,'' Maher said. He took personal responsibility, seemed to understand his parents' insistence that he stay in the program longer and was very loving.
``Emotionally, it was just great. We were thrilled.''
Maher didn't want his son's name used so that his former friends -- all drug users -- won't be able to keep track of him.
`Values, integrity, honor'
The Utah-based World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools encompasses eight independently owned schools for troubled youth in four states and three foreign countries, though the government recently closed one in Costa Rica.
According to the company's Web site, at http://www.wwasp.com/ (http://www.wwasp.com/), the schools ``teach values, integrity, honor, and respect for authority. They are specifically designed to help teens replace inappropriate attitudes, behaviors and habits with new, productive ones.''
Maher, Browder and Day all emphasized that a key component of the WWASPS program is its parallel seminars for parents.
``This program is the only one focused on the whole family,'' Browder said.
``The idea is, they come home to a different home,'' Maher said, ``so you don't repeat patterns.''
After having broken his back, undergone a heart transplant and lost his business, Browder said, he was ``not a very happy person,'' he said. ``I had a lot of crap going on.
``I was short-tempered,'' he said, and it affected his daughter's behavior. ``People need to take a good hard look at themselves. Actions produce results you don't like.''
Though for a time, he was skeptical, Browder came to appreciate the behavior-modification program.
``It didn't just change my daughter, it changed my wife and me,'' Browder said.
``Our family used to be dysfunctional. Now we have fun.''
Installing discipline
At Casa by the Sea, the rules are strict, parents say.
Kids are allowed no condiments for their food, for instance, until they pass level 1. Tennis shoes are not permitted until they achieve the highest level, level 4. (It's hard to run wearing flip-flops on dirt, Browder explained.)
The whole point, Browder said, is to instill discipline. ``Most kids desire to have boundaries and rules.'' They begin to appreciate the freedom they had at home.
``They really earn all that; they earn self-respect.''
Although it takes an average of 18 to 24 months to complete the course, some take as few as 14 or as many as 32 months to graduate. Some never do.
``It's definitely not for everybody,'' Browder said.
There are collateral benefits, however. Browder knows of one boy at Casa whose two buddies were also methamphetamine users. They quit meth and got their grades up, he said, ``because they knew they'd be next'' to be sent away to school.
Marijuana in sixth grade
Long after the fact, the Days learned Gabe had been introduced to marijuana by grade six. By junior high, he'd graduated to methamphetamines.
He also had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a common diagnosis for children who later get into trouble, Day said.
``They already tend to be impulsive and predisposed to problems in school,'' she said. ``They have problems socially because they're behind in social development. And they're at risk for self-medicating.''
Gable began to have problems respecting the rules at home. He'd be absent all weekend, partying. He wasn't doing well in school and he finally quit going.
Then he overdosed.
Though Gabe did not resist when 16 people from the Changes Parent Support Network, a Redmond-based group to which the Days belong, brought two vans to accompany him to the airport, many kids do.
``Typically, kids are angry. They don't go willingly, because they're out of control,'' Day said. ``The party's over.''
When he arrived at Casa by the Sea last July, Gabe chose telling words to describe his self-image: ``skateboarder, clown, pothead,'' Day learned later.
In the nearly 12 months since, Day said, he has come to consider himself a ``clean, strong, intelligent young man.''
In weekly letters and once-a-month phone calls home, he was encouraged to pose uncomfortable questions about family dynamics.
It was, in turn, encouraging for the Days ``to get a proactive letter from a kid who for years did not let us into his thinking process.
``I'm really, really proud because he's working now,'' Day said.
Gabe is still in Mexico, and unavailable for an interview.
The Days and other local families represent the tip of the iceberg, Day believes.
``There is so much pain out there, it is phenomenal,'' with kids involved in eating disorders, self-mutilation, drugs, she said.
``The kids know something is not right. For some, it's a relief when they see their parents have finally done something.''
Lori Varosh can be reached at http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/ ... tml/137370 (http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/story/html/137370)
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I did, and I am. It is truly something to weep about. When this type of child abuse is outlawed in Mexico and Costa Rica, why not send them to North Korea or perhaps Syria? I'm sure they would be more than willing to whip them in to shape there too, where the ends justify any and all means, including kidnapping and torture.
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Ooooohhhhh!!! Should we be happy or sad? Happy for a visions project that finally succeeded OR sad that YOUR child is still in lock down. Also, why do you post anon. scared OR not proud of yourself?
After, the Dundee fiasco, I don't think I would be bragging about to much these days. It's just the calm before the storm for wwasps. I believe the name of the song is "Time is on my side"?
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That article was all about money. Those parents who had their words published will receive a check, and WWASP will receive new enrollment adding to the millions in profits each year. One sick ring for profit, at the cost of our youth.
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This newspaper is not exactly small-time, but not huge either. Circulation, they say, reaches 50K homes. There is an active parents' group in the Seattle area, and they obviously know how to generate publicity. Do you suppose the reporter called and asked for information ???? or did she receive a call from these "ecstatic" parents wanting to share their good fortune in finding WWASPS?
In any event, since a lot of Seattle-area folks could be exposed, why not write a Letter to the Editor, explaining what this fluffy story did not. The contact is peter.horvitz@kingcountyjournal.com (http://mailto:peter.horvitz@kingcountyjournal.com), and the News Editor is Craig Groshart. Fight Back!
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``The boy we met three weeks ago was a completely different person,'' Maher said in late June, his voice thickening. ``He had completely turned around.''
This, I believe. Got money? Don't like your kid? No problem! Just ship them off to be broken, brainwashed and reprogramed!
Stepford has arrived!
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another; shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement
Thomas Jefferson
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On 2003-07-16 10:10:00, Antigen wrote:
Don't like your kid? No problem! Just ship them off to be broken, brainwashed and reprogramed!
That's a weird statement?? Parents may not like what their kid is doing to self destruct, but if they didn't like their kid, they certainly wouldn't spend a dime on them, much less do the inner work to change the dynamics to be a successful family. Whatever your story is, it's unfortunate you can't see past your own pain to actually help instead of attack help that is available - I have yet to see Resources as this site is identified. What "help" do you recommend for families in crisis? It seems to me that WWASP programs actually help with parenting and family unity - and it's obvious it hasn't worked for everyone - but you gotta want it. Were you in a WWASP school or do you just dislike help in general?
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>>Were you in a WWASP school or do you just dislike help in general?
Some of us define "help" very differently. We are entitled to the opinion that Behavior Modification, Abuse, Neglect are not desirable methods of "helping".
I resent your message which seems to imply that YOUR definition of "help" is the only one and others who disagree must be weird or wrong.
I do not define any program as "help". And yes there are many other options available to parents and teens. Some people choose to think outside the box and take full responsibility.
The issue I have with you program parents is your lack of respect for other's RIGHTS. The right to have a different opinion and speak it. The right to share one's experience as it is perceived. Why do you choose to hang around here saying the same thing over and over. Find some tolerance.. it just might improve your relationship with your teen. The rest of the world does not have to be inline with your choices and decisions. Grow up.
Deborah
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I am a mom looking for resources. So if wwasp program parents are different from what I'm reading on this forum, my choice is to be like them. It doesn't look like there's abuse or neglect involved with this option. Just some allegations that are on other threads. It also doesn't look like it will go anywhere. On the contrary, since they are under close watch, there would be NOTHING that could be construed as abuse anyway. If it wasn't the safest program before, it is now! Thanks for all your help.
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Boy, THAT was circular logic if I ever heard it! Try to convince yourself all you want, but if you put your kid in one of those places you are guilty of child abuse.
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quote:
"... On the contrary, since they are under close watch, there would be NOTHING that could be construed as abuse anyway."
Statements such as the above by Anon illustrate why protecting children from WWASP-like programs cannot be left unregulated. This parent reads the literally-hundreds of "case history" comments by survivors on boards like this, and her reponse is, "if SOMEONE is watching the little buggers all the time, then nothing abusive can be going on." Such totally illogical reasoning and 100% reliance on somebody else to fix the problem she can't handle tells me that government (i.e., laws) are going to have to go in and protect this woman's child, because she certainly isn't interested in doing it.
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If you are really looking for help for your child, you should want help that is supported by scientific research, not help which has as its only support personal anecdotes. Would you choose treatment for cancer based only on accounts of people who said that particular treatment was a success, and ignoring those who said it had harmed and ignoring the medical research?
I didn't think so. So why do you see behavioral treatment for teenagers as subject to a lesser standard of proof?
If you really want help for your teenager, why aren't you seeing a medical professional? Why are you going to people who say explicitly in their contract that what they do isn't "therapeutic"? Why would you sign your child over to people who say that they will err on the side of avoiding medical expenses, rather than on the side of caution and who expect you to hold them blameless legally if they make a mistake there that harms or even kills your child? Have you actually read what the WWASP contract permits them to do to your kid?
Also, why aren't you starting with the least intrusive option first-- as medical professionals recommend? Why aren't you looking at the medical research?
The research on behavioral treatment for teens finds that confrontational, boot camp style approaches are harmful and counterproductive. When they are compared to empathetic therapies, the empathetic therapists have far better outcomes-- less relapse to drug use, for example. Also, programs like WWASP put teens with minor problems in with those with serious problems-- and research finds that when you do that, you tend to get more kids getting worse than getting better.
If you care about your child, you should hold treatment for their behavioral problems to the same standard that you would hold treatment for their other medical problems. WWASP, by all accounts from people with real expertise in treating troubled kids effectively, fails in this.
Sure, you can find some quack psychologists to praise it-- but you can also find some of them who still believe in rebirthing, which killed a child a few years ago. You will be hard-pressed to find a legitimate psychologist or psychiatrist who had read the research literature to support WWASP.
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dear anonymous mom:
if you think its safe, i urge you to read your WWASP contract more closely (and take it to your lawyer if you dont understand all of the implications). If WWASPs wants you to believe that they are "safer than ever before" why do they try to disclaim all liability in their contract? Why would they insist that they are only subject to the law of Mexico (or whereever)
As I've said in this space before, would you let your daughter go driving around with a kid who had no car insurance and had their driver's license suspended 4 times? By your logic, the kid with no license and no insurance must must be a really safe driver now, since he'll get in a lot more trouble if he's caught again! Well, uh, no....
This analogy is directly on point. WWASP's contract purports to eliminate the need for any "insurance" since (they want you to believe) that you cant sue them anyway. (Or not that you'd want to, cause they've never, ever done anything wrong...) And they've lost operations in Samoa, Mexico, Czech Republic, and at the moment, have been found in non-compliance by regulators in SOuth Carolina.
Have a nice time, kids! Remember that seat belts and airbags aren't the only kind of passive restraints!
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The LA times articles are much more uplifting. I find it amazing that a reporter does not see a problem when the only kids that can claim a positive experience are still living with their parents and are under threat of being sent back and the parents who so think the program changed their kid's lives, most cases the kid has not even been home yet.
Since a lot of these parents are rich or at least upper middle class to send their kids to such high priced prison complexes I think they just don't understand the basic dynamic of institutionalization and kids.
Parents are guilty of child abuse if they leave their kid in the care of anyone or any group that they have reason to believe is abusive or may be abusive. It is called due dilligence. They are also guilty if they do not research a program before sending their kid to be abused.
Mexican law, hmmm I can't wait for them to piss off one of the more passionate parents who gets their kid back all programmed and doesn't like it. Mexican law usually involves some money changing hands and a hole in the desert.
Kids are abused almost across the board in any institutional setting. The system is so broken both in private and public settings that it is difficult to find a place where the kids are not being abused. You only have to look at the private contractor facilities that are hired by major cities for the kids in state custody. A contractor in DC is embroiled in a scandal where they essentially took the city's money and left the kids to fend for themselves in these apartment buildings. At least 3 of the kids were murdered while in the program's care and another one is charged with a murder. w
[ This Message was edited by: FaceKhan on 2003-07-16 16:27 ]
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By effective treatment, what do you mean? We've been to a psychologist, psychiatrists, parent's anonymous, drug rehab (joke) and the best they could do (the pyschiatrist and the school counselor) was to suggest medication for ADHD. Sorry,but that's NOT an option and one that I consider abuse and neglect. Instead of fearing what I read here, I am convinced that regulation would only provide more of what we DON'T need. I'll check back with you soon. There's no cure for ADHD, but the results of behavior modification (anger management, inner work) have a better change of being successful than medication the rest of one's life.
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On 2003-07-16 13:16:00, Anonymous wrote:
"
Were you in a WWASP school or do you just dislike help in general?
I was in Straight, Incorporated, which was based on the Synanon method just like WWASP is. I do not dislike help in general, but of course it depends on how you define help. If someone is drowning, for example, and they cry "Help! Help! I'm drowning!!" how do you help them? By throwing them a brick? Technically, you will have helped them. I've had about as much of that kind of help as I can stand, thanks very much.
That's a weird statement?? Parents may not like what their kid is doing to self destruct, but if they didn't like their kid, they certainly wouldn't spend a dime on them, much less do the inner work to change the dynamics to be a successful family.
Believe me, when you get your kid back you'll be looking into the eyes of a completely different kid, a total stranger. While she's away getting a good brainwhashing and personality change, dreaming of going back home to familiar surroundings and rhythms, you're busy erasing every vestage of your home and family identity so she won't even have that to come home to. Lady, you are getting taken for the ride of your life. It's not just the money, they're taking so much more from you that you'll never, ever get back.
Whatever your story is, it's unfortunate you can't see past your own pain to actually help instead of attack help that is available - I have yet to see Resources as this site is identified.
What "help" do you recommend for families in crisis? It seems to me that WWASP programs actually help with parenting and family unity - and it's obvious it hasn't worked for everyone - but you gotta want it.
Just the benefit of my own experience, ma'am. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. There is no fantastic process you can pay for that will miraculously turn your kid into the perfect kid. My parents bought into that same scam starting over 30 years ago. It was bogus then and it's bogus now; in fact, it's essentially the same schtick with very minor re-writes.
The Program dogma is, as it always was, that all complaints about the program are wrong, to begin with, and motivated only be bitterness and weakness.
Just meditate on that for a moment.
You have turned your daughter over to people who have been repeatedly and constantly accused of every kind of inhumanity and abuse; much of which they don't deny, but excuse. The people making these complaints are all telling the same stories over years and spanning continents. They don't even know each other. From a criminal investigator's point of view, that adds up to about iron clad, coroborated testimony. And yet, if your daughter tried to tell you about it, you'd immediately turn her in and ship her back there for punishment.
Doesn't that just clue you in a little bit that maybe these people have something to hide?
Now you should know something about the people who frequent these forums. You could spend hours and hours reading through these folks' life stories if you wanted to. And, frankly, I hope you will spend some time doing that, at least. But let me give you a quick sketch. Most of us graduated these programs anywhere from 2 - 30 years ago. We've been comparing notes. Little of importance has changed. Many of us stayed on as staff in these programs. Some of us were never in the program at all, but are parents who either got hoodwinked by the same slick salesmen who've got you lapping it up now or their children were placed in one of these gulags without their consent.
Why should we care? What realistic motivation could so many people have for saying these things or even being interested enough to read about it all these years later? I can only speak for myself, so I will. For me, it's asif I found out that the SOB who raped me as a child is running a day care down the street. What kind of cold hearted bitch would I have to be to stay quiet about it?A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trust either of them
P.J. O'Rourke
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Wow this is some interesting logic, If the parents force their kid to take dangerous drugs then that would be abuse. (and it probably should be considered that) But if you send your kid to a place where he is kept locked away without any rights at all. Can't speak, can't go outside, can't go to the bathroom, can't have personal music or reading material, can't have uncensored contact with his own parents, can't even tell anyone that the place is abusive. That is somehow not child abuse? One of WWASP's legal problems has involved forced medicating of students without a doctor's prescription as well as denying prescribed medication and needed medical care as a form of punishment.
You're just one more selfish babyboomer parent who can't hack it that your kid is a person too and is gonna make some mistakes. So lets just talk in the only language you understand, if you ever want a hope of a relationship with your kid you should get him out of wwasp now and try to get him some help and apologize for sending him in the first place. WWASP only provides one thing to a kid and that is a heavy dose of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, aka the same problem that all those veterans you see begging on the city streets have.
I have yet to hear of an adult who was at WWASP who no longer needs their parent's financial support praising the program. That is who I would be interested to hear from. Find a few and I don't mean through WWASP's own little network of paid testimonials.
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On 2003-07-16 15:45:00, spots wrote:
if SOMEONE is watching the little buggers all the time, then nothing abusive can be going on." Such totally illogical reasoning and 100% reliance on somebody else to fix the problem she can't handle tells me that government (i.e., laws) are going to have to go in and protect this woman's child, because she certainly isn't interested in doing it.
Really? I see it from entirely the opposite side. There's a broad, gaping logical flaw in the idea of government oversight as a remedy for abuse. Namely, once we hand over authority to government, who's watching the wathcers? If you called up WWASP and asked them to tell you why you should trust them, how would they respond? Why, they'll point to whatever licensing and credentials (bogus though some of them may be) as proof that they're government certified wholesome and safe.
I don't think more regulation is capable of keeping anyone safe. I think the illusion of it can foster a dangerous false sense of security, though.
I think the best solution lies in a healthy, vibrant, grumpy and mean media. They're starting to catch on to that, too. Not only as regards WWASP, but they're starting to address other important matters in a more critical way just lately.
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is
proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in
everlasting ignorance- that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
--Herbert Spencer
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On 2003-07-16 16:23:00, Anonymous wrote:
"By effective treatment, what do you mean? We've been to a psychologist, psychiatrists, parent's anonymous, drug rehab (joke) and the best they could do (the pyschiatrist and the school counselor) was to suggest medication for ADHD. Sorry,but that's NOT an option and one that I consider abuse and neglect. Instead of fearing what I read here, I am convinced that regulation would only provide more of what we DON'T need. I'll check back with you soon. There's no cure for ADHD, but the results of behavior modification (anger management, inner work) have a better change of being successful than medication the rest of one's life. "
That's it! You're torturing your kid because you don't want him taking Adderal??? And I bet you typed this little nugget of wisdom while sipping a cup of coffee, huh?
So the kid needs stimulants, or maybe not, maybe pot works better for him. But NO! I'm an organic, vegan super boomer mom and I will NOT have a CHILD who is DEPENDANT on DRUGS! NO! That's not good enough. MY kid will be better than that!
God, this is so tragic and so frustrating! Give the goddamned kid some speed, for Christ's sake, if that's what will help him get along!!
...it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate,
tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds..
--Samuel Adams
_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
American P.O.W. 10/80 - 10/82
Straight South (Sarasota, FL)
Anonymity Anonymous
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anon- you said meds wasnt an option, well my daughter was in cost rica, and she said she was given meds, without my consent! the night of the riot they gave her 2 small white pills, i have talked to a number of kids that have said they were given pills and injections. they told her (after she was taken back to the school that night) that the little white pills were allergy pills, because of the bites and scratches on her legs. no one yet has verified what all these pills were, anon you need to do some research. not every child from all the schools and all over the country would be telling the same stories, please for your child check every detail, i made some bad choices, and i regret it everyday!
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[ This Message was edited by: KarenZ on 2003-10-17 08:53 ]
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Here's an example of the reality of State Oversight and Regulation of programs folks. Things have to get really bad for officials to take any action.
Deborah
http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/con ... brown.html (http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/brown/0713brown.html)
Excerpt:
When Moody died in October after struggling with three counselors while being restrained at the Brown Schools' On Track facility, there were no fines levied, although On Track was cited 28 times. And regardless, the maximum fine would have been just $100.
"We have a lot of kids in our care who are a challenge to care for, and it's our philosophy to work with these facilities to try to bring them up to the standards," said Geoffrey Wool, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services. "We'd rather work with them . . . and know that there are places for these children instead of punish these facilities and force them out of business."
But some advocates suspect the system in Texas is bogged down by what amounts to a conflict of interest: The Department of Protective and Regulatory Services also oversees Child Protective Services, which depends on these facilities to house troubled children who are either removed from their homes or orphaned.
At any given time, of the 6,000 beds available in Texas facilities, about 1,500 are filled with Child Protective Service placements, Wool said.
"The state has a conflict of interest because it both licenses and relies on the care in the residential treatment centers," said former state District Judge Scott McCown, who in his time as a judge became familiar with residential treatment centers and other youth-oriented programs and is now executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities.
Wool said his bosses see it differently: "Who better to regulate these facilities than the people who are actually placing children there?" he said. "We have a vested interest in making sure that these facilities provide a minimum standard of quality and that the children who are in these facilities are getting the care and treatment that they need."
Still, some treatment providers have said for years that the state does not pay enough to provide the necessary care for troubled youth. The rates run to more than $100 a day for the most challenging cases, a fraction of the cost of many private facilities.
McCown acknowledges that may be the case.
"What do you do if you don't want to pay a reasonable rate?" McCown said. "You ease up on regulations."
The alternative, he said, is to "pay decent rates to take care of the kids, then you hold people accountable."
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I don't think paying decent rates is the solution to better regulation and accoutablility.
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Myself, I think the answer is to imprison the perpetrators.
I think this is the answer.
There are always going to be situation in society where one group of people will have power and authority over another.
If, in this circumstance, those with power and authority, use it to inflict pain and humiliation of the degree we have become familiar with; then those people should be charged with assault and battery and sent to prison. Actually, I think we need a whole new sort of charge - something describing the use of position to inflict pain - where the party in question is in a position of trust and responsibility, and uses it to systematically brutalize their charges.
The idea of these pittely fines, and dismissal of the guilty party is an absolute joke.
In my opinion, these programs have become a haven for sadist.
In much the same way a pedofile may seek employment were they will have access to children, I think the sadistic among us appear to be seeking employment with these programs.
How else to explain the kind of thing we read about in the Go Media link, and here, and elsewhere?
Just as we need the pedofile in prison to protect society from them; we need to lock away these sadistic persons as well.
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we are here to expose them for what they are and to somehow bring attention to the matter so that some how changes can be made and the kids that need help can get real help. if i hear of one more kid who asphysiated from being so-called restrained
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I'm amazed that people will believe anecdotes from people who say good things about WWASP, ignore anecdotes from people who say bad things about it-- and completely write off the entire body of scientific literature on Ritalin.
Sure, medications are sometimes overused. but at least Ritalin has been repeatedly studied for decades and found to *reduce* the odds of later drug abuse by at least half. There's no evidence that it causes any kind of harm when properly prescribed. And studies that have directly compared medication as treatment for ADD with behavioral treatments have found that medication is *more* effective-- and when you compare meds plus behavior mod to meds alone, unless there are co-existing conditions, the results are equivalent (ie, the behavioral stuff doesn't add anything to the effects of the meds).
Please, look at the research-- there's a group at Harvard that has done much of it. Search on Medline, available free from the National Library of Medicine and this will all come up.
And yeah, some rehabs are lousy-- the whole field of drug treatment suffers from the fact that parents have never demanded anything more than anecdotes as evidence so the people who run drug programs have never been held accountable. But at least in rehab, there are regulations which at least offer some patient protections.
WWASP, OTOH, has never been independently studied and is totally unregulated.
Do you want your kid to be more likely to take drugs, not less? If so, go ahead and send him to a program like WWASP that will traumatize him (PTSD doubles odds of relapse), send him to one which will confront him (another significant increase in relapse risk), deny him Ritalin (and the chance to cut risk of addiction by 50%)-- and oh yeah, put him in with more serious drug users (another thing that WWASP does which has been demonstrated to be harmful).
Think about your standards of evidence: the only evidence there is favoring WWASP comes from people who are *paid* to refer others or who have been so terrorized by their experience there (and who haven't been permitted to graduate until they declared the program wonderful) that they will say anything not to get sent back.
Is that really more believable than dozens of peer reviewed studies published over decades? Would you really send your child for cancer treatment based on such flimsy evidence?
Sure, there are plenty of problems with research-- but there's also no doubt that it's more reliable than anecdotes from self-interested parties presented with out any attempt to reduce bias.
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Just a curious question. It's a little confusing what I'm reading. You talk about people dying in a WWASP facility from being restrained? Or maybe not, it's not real clear and I've never seen any newspaper articles on this. Has a child ever died in a WWASP facility? Wait, I take that back, I saw a report where a girl was attempting to escape and jumped to her death - before anyone could restrain her. So has a student ever died while in a WWASP program or even been injured other than that unfortunate incident? I saw the other thread and didn't see WWASP listed as having "casualties."
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A WWASP student shot himself while at home after his mother threatened to send him back to WWASP for a "refresher". The boys older sister had also spent years in WWASP facilities and has no contact with her mother.
That death and the death of the girl in Jamaica are ethicaly speaking, far more reasonably considered murder than WWASP programs are considered legitimate therapy.
Pull your kid. I promise it will not be "the hardest thing you ever had to do." (the program parent mantra) unless you have issues with admitting you were wrong.
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Anon wrote:
Please, look at the research-- there's a group at Harvard that has done much of it. Search on Medline, available free from the National Library of Medicine and this will all come up.
Anon,
Ritalin and other "legal" Schedule II Narcotics are yet another "quick fix" promise by the biomedical mental health industry (psychiatry), of which behavior mod facilities are also a part of. Another way parents can abdicate responsibility.
There are no quick fixes or guarantees. The job of helping someone restore their hope and self esteem and acquire social skills is usually a long journey (or long wait). I've known a number of kids on psych meds. They all had chaotic family situations. And the boy I'm closest to is fine when he is with me. It is not beyond his ability to focus and "behave appropriately" as his mother contends. It's just easier to give him a pill every weekday before school. Meanwhile, he never eats, and when he does it's junk; and gorges on the weekend. Complains of stomach aches, headaches and resently had a mild seizure. But hey, the school officials are off her back.
I put this challenge to you or anyone else here.
Post the research results which prove that ADD/ADHD/ODD and all the rest, are real biological "diseases" that will benefit from medication as say, a diabetic benefits from insulin. Hint: you won't find it, doesn't exist. It's pure and simple fraud, perpetrated by the pushers of the Psych Pharm Industry. But searching for it might be a good exercise for those who have bought the line fed to the public about these so-called diseases. Just more Psychiatric Fraud.
Post the research that proves there are no negative side-effects to children and teens who take these addictive, Schedule II Narcotics which are equivalent to cocaine. Particularly in regards to brain development and heart health. Just as the BM facilities are able to abuse children in ways a parent can't, so can psych professionals. If I gave my son THC because "it worked", I'd be jailed and loose custody. Any shrinky dink or MD can prescribe him legal cocaine.
Looking at the stats (500 thousand in 1985 to between 5 and 7 million today) on the number of legal users and how that number has exploded in two decades, I have to wonder if the "War on Drugs" is not really an attempt to eliminate competition. Gov't doesn't want us "self medicating" but wants our money going in the pockers of the pushers they can tax. Psych Pharma's goal seems to be to medicalize every possible human behavior and emotion and have as many folks as possible addicted to their drugs to "manage" their "illnesses". They are claiming to be able to diagnose depression in infants. Give me a break. An infant would be on psych meds for the rest of his/her life because the meds inhibit the body's ability to create it's own mind altering chemicals, eventually creating a total dependency. Some are lethal if discontinued cold turkey.
Can you tell us how many children/people have died directly or indirectly from the use of legal Schedule II Narcotics?
How many have committed homicide or suicide while on psych meds?
Can you tell us how many kids are selling their Ritalin and Adderall for $15+ a pill?
If you think these drugs are safe, you have more research to do. This thread and the post from Anon Mom seem to limit the options to DRUGS or PROGRAM. There is SOOOOO much more out there. May not be as easy to find, but with DRUGS and PROGRAMS you are rolling the dice in terms of your child's health and well being.
While you're searching for the answers to the questions I posed, you might check out:
http://www.wildestcolts.com (http://www.wildestcolts.com)
http://www.wildestcolts.com/links.html (http://www.wildestcolts.com/links.html)
http://www.breggin.com/ (http://www.breggin.com/)
http://www.ritalindeath.com/ (http://www.ritalindeath.com/)
http://www.adhdfraud.com/ (http://www.adhdfraud.com/)
Be sure to scroll down and read the Special Report on the right side. Click on Dr. Baughman's testimony.
Here's a little taste:
In 1980, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) was invented, in-committee, for DSM-III [4].
In 1987, ADD was revised, becoming ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) for DSM-III-R [5]. Any 8 behaviors from a list of 14, qualifies a child for the ?diagnosis.?
In 1994, ADHD is again ?re-conceptualized?, this time for DSM-IV [6]. Six of the nine behaviors from one of two lists qualifies for the ?inattentive,? the ?hyperactive-impulsive? or the ?combined? type.
On July 15, 1996, Congressman Christopher Shays [7] testified: "In ADHD, we are trying to draw the line between personality and pathology, and we are placing millions of children and adults on either side of the social, medical and legal boundary that divides the healthy from the sick. We should do so only with the greatest care, and with particular reticence to make our children medical patients because as a culture we have lost our patience with them."
At the same hearing, Jensen [8], of the NIMH and CHADD (he is a member of their Professional Advisory Board), assured the Congressman: "?studies have consistently pointed towards disturbances in brain functioning, particularly in brain areas responsible for attention and memory."
Jensen used the wording: "pointed toward disturbances in brain functioning" because there was no proof of brain malfunction at the time. Just as there is none today.
On September 23, 1993, Baughman [9], testified to the Panel on NIH Research on Antisocial, Aggressive, and Violence-Related Behaviors and their Consequences: "If, as I am convinced, these entities are not diseases, it would be unethical to initiate research to evaluate biological interventions?unethical and fatally flawed scientifically.
A quote from Dr. Baughman:
"They made a list of the most common symptoms of emotional discomfiture of children; those which bother teachers and parents most, and in a stroke that could not be more devoid of science or Hippocratic motive--termed them a 'disease.' Twenty five years of research, not deserving of the term 'research.,' has failed to validate ADD/ADHD as a disease. Tragically--the "epidemic" having grown from 500 thousand in 1985 to between 5 and 7 million today--this remains the state of the 'science' of ADHD."
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Please, don't promote Big Psych Pharma. And certainly, know what you're talking about before you do. Our kids deserve better. I'm actually proud of this mom for refusing drugs. I'm sorry she's considering a option that could potentially be equally abusive. :cry:
Deborah
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On 2003-07-17 16:03:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Just a curious question. It's a little confusing what I'm reading. You talk about people dying in a WWASP facility from being restrained? Or maybe not, it's not real clear and I've never seen any newspaper articles on this. Has a child ever died in a WWASP facility? Wait, I take that back, I saw a report where a girl was attempting to escape and jumped to her death - before anyone could restrain her. So has a student ever died while in a WWASP program or even been injured other than that unfortunate incident? I saw the other thread and didn't see WWASP listed as having "casualties." "
I don't believe anyone who was not in a state of blind panic would try to escape any place by jumping, head first, from a fourth floor window.
Check out this topic:
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... &forum=9&8 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=2519&forum=9&8)
All the damned time in these places, kids are offing themselves, trying to off themselves or getting killed by staff and by other clients.
This is not true of their peers who are doing all the same things but who do not get sent to a gulag.
I know of one program graduate who beat his mother to death with a baseball bat, stuffed her in the trunk of his car and then picked up a few friends to go joy riding. Last I heard, he's on death row in Texas. I know of another who killed himself on his mother's bed surrounded by the dead-bolt locks she had used to turn their home into a prison. Being a good, "strong" Program parent, she had dutifully severed all ties with her twin boys when they left the cult and "opened" her home (by making it a prison, availaboe for you) to the Program to warehouse clients who had not earned the "privilege" of living in their own homes with their own parents.
Finally, I don't think I've ever heard or read a WWASPie claim that WWASP doesn't kill kids. Their usual retort is that they've never lost in court. Big fuckin' deal! Neither did Ted Bundy for some 15 years! And it looked like Charles Manson was pretty close to skating free till the very end.
The Internet is now safe for free speech.
-- Christopher A. Hansen on the overturning of the Communications Decency Act
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Re: ADD, depression, etc.
The criteria that define psychiatric conditions-- when properly used-- are as valid as those used for physical diseases. There are many physical diseases-- MS, for example-- which cannot be defined by objective tests, they must be diagnosed by ruling out other conditions. There's no objective test for schizophrenia, either, but no one denies it's a real disease.
Most psychiatric diagnoses are replicable from one physician to another at the same rate as physical diseases are-- so there is no evidence to undermine the validity of all of them, and none to rule out ADD and depression as real and replicable.
Re: Ritalin/antidepressants. All drugs have side effects. Big deal. If the side effects are problematic, stop the drug or try a different one. That tells us nothing about whether or not these drugs help-- and there's abundant evidence that when properly prescribed, they do.
Drug war hysteria and the labeling of drugs by the government in "schedules" is completely invalidated by the fact that tobacco-- the most harmful known drug-- is legal and not in any schedule, while marijuana, which is far less harmful than cocaine or morphine, is put in the category of having no medical uses, despite research by the National Academy of Sciences and numerous others showing how ludicrous this is. When dying people can have morphine but not marijuana, something is so wrong that using the schedules to argue anything makes no sense.
Again, while some people do abuse Ritalin (and some people abuse aspirin!), that doesn't mean that it doesn't help some-- and there have been two large studies finding that people prescribed Ritalin for ADD are half as likely to later become drug addicts as those whose ADD is unmedicated. There is no similar evidence on behavioral treatments for ADD, which come up short when compared directly to drugs.
People may not like this idea-- but what I don't get is why people who would be delighted to pop a pill to fix a physical condition like cancer feel that people with mental conditions should have to suffer and work at their recovery.
Further, most of the people who crusade against psychiatry are influenced-- whether they are aware of it or not-- by Scientology, which funds much of the "all psychiatric drugs are bad" propaganda and the litigation related to these drugs.
Mr. Anti-Prozac, Peter Breggin himself frequently testifies for the Scieno's in these lawsuits. His books make the ridiculous claim that all positive effects of the drugs are due to placebo action-- while all negative effects are due to the chemical nature of the drugs. This cannot be.
Either the drugs have some good and some bad effects or they have no effect-- they can't have both and you credit them for the bad but not the good; that's not science.
And I'm not saying that drugs v. inpatient treatment are the only options. What I am saying is that you shouldn't rule out automatically the option with the most research support and go for the one with the least!
The best first option is always the one likely to do the least harm-- individual counseling, with someone who knows Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Motivational Interviewing. And such evidence based counseling is not easy to find because so many counselors just say they are "eclectic" and do what the heck they want, rather than using stuff proven to work. But at least ordinary counselors can't do the harm that is done in places where the owners have absolute control-- and they won't cause the harm that comes from mixing kids with mild problems with those with severe problems.
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If you get into herbalism and kitchen gardening at all, one of the first things you find out is that most of the spices and flavorings in your spice rack are medically active in one or more ways. Clove is good for killing parasites, for example. Rosemary is good for improving circulation, remedying some types of migrane and discouraging hair loss. Dandilion is good for reducing blood pressure. Sage is a cure for neurasthenia (amotivation, anhedonia).
I think the line between nutrition and medicine is entirely imaginary. How many people depend on their favorite source of caffine to stay normal and focused? Are they all abusing the drug, or are they using it to good effect? If caffine were illegal and cocaine legal, would things be any different? Would we have a war on coffee cartels fought by special forces personnel guzzling the original Coca~Cola recipe?
I don't think ADD, ADHD, ADD/HDD or whatever you want to call it is really a 'disorder' in the person in the senese that they're ill. I think it's a mainfestation of a diet too poor in stimulants.
So we have these kids who need more stimulants in their diets than they get from ordinary junk food. If the kid takes the initiative to acquire what he needs from the school locker room or wherever, he becomes a criminal. Then we have this whole other class of kids who the schoolpeople insist be dosed on Ritalin. I'm sure some of them benefit from it. But it's just very hard for me to believe that 400k of our kids' diets are so deficient in stimulants that they actually need this kind of high, daily or more dosing.
you Momma is a big fat's ________
--Leroy Brown
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Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2003 4:43 PM
Subject: ADHD and the Meaning of Evidence
ADHD and the Meaning of Evidence
Barry Turner. BA MPhil.
There are some people that are denying that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder exists. They are accused of being irresponsible, causing the condition to be underdiagnosed and even causing the sufferers of this disease to "unwittingly self medicate with illegal drugs or alcohol". If it were not for the fact that the explosion in ADHD diagnosis and treatment with stimulants such as Ritalin (Methylphenidate) represents the greatest medical catastrophe
since Thalidomide these statements would be laughable.
Do the makers of such statements really believe that the millions taking Ecstasy (MDMA), and other illegal substances that are closely related to Ritalin (methylphenidate), at thousands of night-clubs every weekend, are "self medicating" because they have not been "properly diagnosed". How can a "medical scientist" say that a "disease" is underdiagnosed (based on what
data?)
There is absolutely no reason why those opposed to the myth of ADHD as a disease need to justify that position. The matter is clear. It is for those who maintain the position that ADHD is a disease to adduce evidence of it. That evidence must be in the form of data collected in experimental conditions that can be validated by objective repeat studies.
Evidence is made up of three elements. The autoptic evidence which relates to material or physical evidence such as chemical residues or fingerprints. Direct evidence, which is that, proposed by a witness or an expert, and
circumstantial evidence, the weakest form of all. What do the proponents of ADHD have in the way of evidence from these sources?
Autoptic evidence is perceived by the senses and is commonly called 'real' evidence. In disease this evidence is always present. In carcinomas biopsies will reveal evidence of cell mutation. In cardiovascular disease necrotic muscle tissue, arterial plaques or calcified arteries can be observed. In infectious diseases the pathogens causing the infections can be collected and
identified. The evidence is there for all medical professionals to see. Not so with ADHD.
Direct evidence is that which an eyewitness or expert describes from their own first hand observations. What do the experts say?
ADHD may be (may be?) genetic¦ no one has extended this to its logical and necessary conclusion by identifying which chromosome has this defective gene and why the defect is there. Blue eyes incidentally are genetically determined
does that make them a disease?
ADHD may be due (again) to biochemical imbalance¦Not one piece of evidence exists to indicate this. Indeed where biochemical imbalances are suggested there is again a signal lack of empirical evidence to support the theory.
(Empirical means that it can be repeated, tested, measured, verified.)
ADHD may be (and again) hereditary¦ Just as in quoting spurious "genetics" this is meaningless at best and deliberately misleading at worst. Criminal behavior is also hereditary, criminal fathers more often than not are followed by criminal sons (and daughters) The behavior is learned and just as musical parents produce musical children and enthusiastic sports loving parents produce sporting offspring this is no indicator of genetics or hereditary cause. It
should be noted that Chinese children have a propensity to grow up speaking Chinese if they grow up in China. Those that have been adopted by western parents and taken to America for instance have not as yet spontaneously begun to speak Chinese because it is hereditary or genetic for them to do so. Language like behavior is learned.
What about the weakest form of evidence, circumstantial. Ah, well here at last the ADHD proponents have something. Children misbehave and run about wildly, they are defiant and get bored easily. Er, yes they always have done. The
circumstances of this "aberrant" behavior suggest to these ADHD observers that something is wrong, the child must be "ill". It perhaps should be put to them that the children are fine, it is they that are suffering from "Observational Inaccuracy and Distortion Disorder"
What about the famous suggestion that these children have "different" or smaller brains? Well the studies that came up with that theory look good until you spend five minutes reading them. After five minutes the reader will notice that the "research cohort" is in fact mixed, some children on medication, some not. Some of the "normal" children are several years older than those with the smaller brains. The statistics invite the well known scientific and legal observation "correlates are not causes". This is the kind of science that concludes that oranges are different to avocados based on the fact that oranges are less green than avocados. How much more enlightened these "scientists"
would become if they actually tasted the fruit.
The language of the ADHD lobby is a wonderful indicator of how exact the science is that created it. "ADHD may be¦" "ADHD is probably¦" "Studies indicate¦" "Scientists believe...". Not one piece of evidence exists to
categorically place this condition in any classification of diseases.
The three kinds of evidence mentioned above are the categories of legal evidence. They are the material that decides the case for or against, guilty or not guilty. There is one that has been missed out.
Hearsay evidence is that which is reported second or third hand. Its value to probandum (actual proof) is severely limited as it cannot be tested by the normal methods employed to examine the other kinds of tangible evidence. The person that relates it does not know the facts, only the facts as they were reported to them. Just like the Connors rating for ADHD. Little Johnny is
hyperactive says the teacher. Give him Ritalin says the doctor. Little Jimmy can't concentrate on his schoolwork says the teacher. Give him Adderal says the doctor. Little Sally misbehaves in class says the teacher. Give her Concerta says the doctor. How many doctors prescribe insulin to patients because their neighbour reports that they have seen them drinking lots of water and heard that their feet often tingle?
If in the future the proponents of ADHD find themselves indicted for inflicting this scourge onto the world they will surely demand that their accusers bring strong evidence before they are convicted. Rest assured they would complain
about rights abuses if they were convicted on circumstantial and hearsay evidence. What an irony that such poor evidence is sufficient to convince them they are right now, so right in fact that on hearsay and circumstantial evidence alone they will give addictive and dangerous medicines to children some of whom are barely out of infancy
Those of us who oppose this outrageous abuse of medical science do not need to justify our position. We do not need to produce evidence that ADHD does NOT exist any more than we need to produce evidence that Santa Claus does not exist. The proponents need to answer these questions.
§ What is the etiology of ADHD?
§ Where is the hard evidence? (objective, scientific and empirically validated)
§ If it is actually a disease, why is no one looking for a CURE?
In the lack of coherent answers to these questions ADHD is a belief system only, like believing in fairies or Santa Claus, not a disease or any other kind of medical condition.
The author is a Lecturer in Legal Studies in Forensic Science in the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lincoln, Criminal Litigator and Mental Health Law Consultant
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Trick Question:
A Liberal Hoax Turns Out to Be True
By Michael Fumento
The New Republic, February 2, 2003
Copyright 2003 The New Republic
It's both right-wing and vast, but it's not a conspiracy. Actually, it's more of an anti-conspiracy. The subject is Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), closely related ailments (henceforth referred to in this article simply as ADHD). Rush Limbaugh declares it "may all be a hoax." Francis Fukuyama devotes much of one chapter in his latest book, Our Posthuman Future, to attacking Ritalin, the top-selling drug used to treat ADHD. Columnist Thomas Sowell writes, "The motto used to be: 'Boys will be boys.' Today, the motto seems to be: 'Boys will be medicated.'" And Phyllis Schlafly explains, "The old excuse of 'my dog ate my homework' has been replaced by 'I got an ADHD diagnosis.'" A March 2002 article in The Weekly Standard summed up the conservative line on ADHD with this rhetorical question: "Are we really prepared to redefine childhood as an ailment, and medicate it until it goes away?"
Many conservative writers, myself included, have criticized the growing tendency to pathologize every undesirable behavior ? especially where children are concerned. But, when it comes to ADHD, this skepticism is misplaced. As even a cursory examination of the existing literature or, for that matter, simply talking to the parents and teachers of children with ADHD reveals, the condition is real, and it is treatable. And, if you don't believe me, you can ask conservatives who've come face to face with it themselves.
Myth: ADHD isn't a real disorder.
Some influential conservative writers have reduced a medical disorder on which over 10,000 articles have been written to mere ?ants in the pants.
The most common argument against ADHD on the right is also the simplest: It doesn't exist. Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg thus reduces ADHD to "ants in the pants." Sowell equates it with "being bored and restless." Fukuyama protests, "No one has been able to identify a cause of ADD/ADHD. It is a pathology recognized only by its symptoms." And a conservative columnist approvingly quotes Thomas Armstrong, Ritalin opponent and author, when he declares, "ADD is a disorder that cannot be authoritatively identified in the same way as polio, heart disease or other legitimate illnesses."
The Armstrong and Fukuyama observations are as correct as they are worthless. "Half of all medical disorders are diagnosed without benefit of a lab procedure," notes Dr. Russell Barkley, professor of psychology at the College of Health Professionals at the Medical University of South Carolina. "Where are the lab tests for headaches and multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's?" he asks. "Such a standard would virtually eliminate all mental disorders."
Often the best diagnostic test for an ailment is how it responds to treatment. And, by that standard, it doesn't get much more real than ADHD. The beneficial effects of administering stimulants to treat the disorder were first reported in 1937. And today medication for the disorder is reported to be 75 to 90 percent successful.
"In our trials it was close to ninety percent," says Dr. Judith Rapoport, director of the National Institute of Mental Health's Child Psychiatry Branch, who has published about 100 papers on ADHD. "This means there was a significant difference in the children's ability to function in the classroom or at home."
This brain scan shows changes in ADHD and non-ADHD brains while the children solved math problems.
Additionally, epidemiological evidence indicates that ADHD has a powerful genetic component. University of Colorado researchers have found that a child whose identical twin has the disorder is between eleven and 18 times more likely to also have it than is a non-twin sibling. For these reasons, the American Psychiatric Association (APA), American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, the surgeon general's office, and other major medical bodies all acknowledge ADHD as both real and treatable.
Myth: ADHD is part of a feminist conspiracy to make little boys more like little girls.
Many conservatives observe that boys receive ADHD diagnoses in much higher numbers than girls and find in this evidence of a feminist conspiracy. (This, despite the fact that genetic diseases are often heavily weighted more toward one gender or the other.) Sowell refers to "a growing tendency to treat boyhood as a pathological condition that requires a new three R's ? repression, re-education and Ritalin."
Fukuyama claims Prozac is being used to give women "more of the alpha-male feeling," while Ritalin is making boys act more like girls. "Together, the two sexes are gently nudged toward that androgynous median personality ... that is the current politically correct outcome in American society."
Sommers was going to include the ADHD ?myth? in her book ? until she found out it wasn?t one.
George Will, while acknowledging that Ritalin can be helpful, nonetheless writes of the "androgyny agenda" of "drugging children because they are behaving like children, especially boy children." Anti-Ritalin conservatives frequently invoke Christina Hoff Sommers's best-selling 2000 book, The War Against Boys. You'd never know that the drug isn't mentioned in her book ? or why.
"Originally I was going to have a chapter on it," Sommers tells me. "It seemed to fit the thesis." What stopped her was both her survey of the medical literature and her own empirical findings. Of one child she personally came to know she says, "He was utterly miserable, as was everybody around him. The drugs saved his life."
Myth: ADHD is part of the public school system's efforts to warehouse kids rather than to discipline and teach them .
"No doubt life is easier for teachers when everyone sits around quietly," writes Sowell. Use of ADHD drugs is "in the school's interest to deal with behavioral and discipline problems [because] it's so easy to use Ritalin to make kids compliant: to get them to sit down, shut up, and do what they're told," declares Schlafly. The word "zombies" to describe children under the effects of Ritalin is tossed around more than in a B-grade voodoo movie.
ADHD naysayers can?t decide whether the drugs turn kids into zombies or Mach-speed cocaine junkies.
Kerri Houston, national field director for the American Conservative Union and the mother of two ADHD children on medication, agrees with much of the criticism of public schools. "But don't blame ADHD on crummy curricula and lazy teachers," she says. "If you've worked with these children, you know they have a serious neurological problem."
In any case, Ritalin, when taken as prescribed, hardly stupefies children. To the extent the medicine works, it simply turns ADHD children into normal children. "ADHD is like having thirty televisions on at one time, and the medicine turns off twenty-nine so you can concentrate on the one," Houston describes. "This zombie stuff drives me nuts! My kids are both as lively and as fun as can be."
Myth: Parents who give their kids anti-ADHD drugs are merely doping up problem children.
Limbaugh calls ADHD "the perfect way to explain the inattention, incompetence, and inability of adults to control their kids." Addressing parents directly, he lectures, "It helped you mask your own failings by doping up your children to calm them down."
Mona Charen, prominent defender of traditional family values: ?Nothing replaces the drugs."
Such charges blast the parents of ADHD kids into high orbit. That includes my Hudson Institute colleague (and fellow conservative) Mona Charen, the mother of an eleven-year-old with the disorder. "I have two non-ADHD children, so it's not a matter of parenting technique," says Charen. "People without such children have no idea what it's like. I can tell the difference between boyish high spirits and pathological hyperactivity. ... These kids bounce off the walls. Their lives are chaos; their rooms are chaos. And nothing replaces the drugs."
Barkley and Rapoport say research backs her up. Randomized, controlled studies in both the United States and Sweden have tried combining medication with behavioral interventions and then dropped either one or the other. For those trying to go on without medicine, "the behavioral interventions maintained nothing," Barkley says. Rapoport concurs: "Unfortunately, behavior modification doesn't seem to help with ADHD." (Both doctors are quick to add that ADHD is often accompanied by other disorders that are treatable through behavior modification in tandem with medicine.)
Myth: Ritalin is "Kiddie Cocaine."
One of the paradoxes of conservative attacks on Ritalin is that the drug is alternately accused of turning children into brain-dead zombies and of making them Mach-speed cocaine junkies. Indeed, Ritalin is widely disparaged as "kiddie cocaine." Writers who have sought to lump the two drugs together include Schlafly, talk-show host and columnist Armstrong Williams, and others whom I hesitate to name because of my long-standing personal relationships with them.
Mary Eberstadt wrote the "authoritative" Ritalin-cocaine piece for the April 1999 issue of Policy Review, then owned by the Heritage Foundation. The article, "Why Ritalin Rules," employs the word "cocaine" no fewer than twelve times. Eberstadt quotes from a 1995 Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) background paper declaring methylphenidate, the active ingredient in Ritalin, "a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant [that] shares many of the pharmacological effects of amphetamine, methamphetamine, and cocaine." Further, it "produces behavioral, psychological, subjective, and reinforcing effects similar to those of d-amphetamine including increases in rating of euphoria, drug liking and activity, and decreases in sedation." Add to this the fact that the Controlled Substances Act lists it as a Schedule II drug, imposing on it the same tight prescription controls as morphine, and Ritalin starts to sound spooky indeed.
Treating an ADHD child can make a tremendous difference in the child?s academic function and overall ability to function for the rest of his life.
What Eberstadt fails to tell readers is that the DEA description concerns methylphenidate abuse. It's tautological to say abuse is harmful. According to the DEA, the drugs in question are comparable when "administered the same way at comparable doses." But ADHD stimulants, when taken as prescribed, are neither administered in the same way as cocaine nor at comparable doses. "What really counts," says Barkley, "is the speed with which the drugs enter and clear the brain. With cocaine, because it's snorted, this happens tremendously quickly, giving users the characteristic addictive high." (Ever seen anyone pop a cocaine tablet?)
Further, he says, "There's no evidence anywhere in literature of [Ritalin's] addictiveness when taken as prescribed." As to the Schedule II listing, again this is because of the potential for it to fall into the hands of abusers, not because of its effects on persons for whom it is prescribed. Ritalin and the other anti-ADHD drugs, says Barkley, "are the safest drugs in all of psychiatry." (And they may be getting even safer: A new medicine just released called Strattera represents the first true non-stimulant ADHD treatment.) Indeed, a study just released in the journal Pediatrics found that children who take Ritalin or other stimulants to control ADHD cut their risk of future substance abuse by 50 percent compared with untreated ADHD children. The lead author speculated that "by treating ADHD you're reducing the demoralization that accompanies this disorder, and you're improving the academic functioning and well-being of adolescents and young adults during the critical times when substance abuse starts."
Myth: Ritalin is overprescribed across the country.
Some call it "the Ritalin craze." In The Weekly Standard, Melana Zyla Vickers informs us that "Ritalin use has exploded," while Eberstadt writes that "Ritalin use more than doubled in the first half of the decade alone, [and] the number of schoolchildren taking the drug may now, by some estimates, be approaching the 4 million mark."
A report in the January 2003 issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine did find a large increase in the use of ADHD medicines from 1987 to 1996, an increase that doesn't appear to be slowing. Yet nobody thinks it's a problem that routine screening for high blood pressure has produced a big increase in the use of hypertension medicine. "Today, children suffering from ADHD are simply less likely to slip through the cracks," says Dr. Sally Satel, a psychiatrist, AEI fellow, and author of PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine.
This is how many ADHD detractors think that children suffering from neurological disorders should be treated.
Satel agrees that some community studies, by the standards laid down in the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), indicate that ADHD may often be over-diagnosed. On the other hand, she says, additional evidence shows that in some communities ADHD is under-diagnosed and under-treated. "I'm quite concerned with children who need the medication and aren't getting it," she says.
There are tremendous disparities in the percentage of children taking ADHD drugs when comparing small geographical areas. Psychologist Gretchen LeFever, for example, has compared the number of prescriptions in mostly white Virginia Beach, Virginia, with other, more heavily African American areas in the southeastern part of the state. Conservatives have latched onto her higher numbers ? 20 percent of white fifth-grade boys in Virginia Beach are being treated for ADHD ? as evidence that something is horribly wrong. But others, such as Barkley, worry about the lower numbers. According to LeFever's study, black children are only half as likely to get medication as white children. "Black people don't get the care of white people; children of well-off parents get far better care than those of poorer parents," says Barkley.
Myth: States should pass laws that restrict schools from recommending Ritalin.
Conservative writers have expressed delight that several states, led by Connecticut, have passed or are considering laws ostensibly protecting students from schools that allegedly pass out Ritalin like candy. Representative Lenny Winkler, lead sponsor of the Connecticut measure, told Reuters Health, "If the diagnosis is made, and it's an appropriate diagnosis that Ritalin be used, that's fine. But I have also heard of many families approached by the school system [who are told] that their child cannot attend school if they're not put on Ritalin."
New laws, while well-meaning, could handcuff teachers who want their ADHD students to be able to concentrate and study as well as their healthy students.
Two attorneys I interviewed who specialize in child-disability issues, including one from the liberal Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington, D.C., acknowledge that school personnel have in some cases stepped over the line. But legislation can go too far in the other direction by declaring, as Connecticut's law does, that "any school personnel [shall be prohibited] from recommending the use of psychotropic drugs for any child." The law appears to offer an exemption by declaring, "The provisions of this section shall not prohibit school medical staff from recommending that a child be evaluated by an appropriate medical practitioner, or prohibit school personnel from consulting with such practitioner, with the consent of the parent or guardian of such child." [Emphasis added.]
But of course many, if not most, schools have perhaps one nurse on regular "staff." That nurse will have limited contact with children in the classroom situations where ADHD is likely to be most evident. And, given the wording of the statute, a teacher who believed a student was suffering from ADHD would arguably be prohibited from referring that student to the nurse. Such ambiguity is sure to have a chilling effect on any form of intervention or recommendation by school personnel.
Moreover, 20-year special-education veteran Sandra Rief said in an interview with the National Education Association that "recommending medical intervention for a student's behavior could lead to personal liability issues." Teachers, in other words, could be forced to choose between what they think is best for the health of their students and the possible risk of losing not only their jobs but their personal assets as well.
"Certainly it's not within the purview of a school to say kids can't attend if they don't take drugs," says Houston. "On the other hand, certainly teachers should be able to advise parents as to problems and potential solutions. ... [T]hey may see things parents don't. My own son is an angel at home but was a demon at school."
If the real worry is "take the medicine or take a hike" ultimatums, legislation can be narrowly tailored to prevent them; broad-based gag orders, such as Connecticut's, are a solution that's worse than the problem.
The Conservative Case for ADHD Drugs
There are kernels of truth to every conservative suspicion about ADHD. Who among us has not had lapses of attention? And isn't hyperactivity a normal condition of childhood when compared with deskbound adults? Certainly there are lazy teachers, warehousing schools, androgyny-pushing feminists, and far too many parents unwilling or unable to expend the time and effort to raise their children properly, even by their own standards.
Where conservatives go wrong is in making ADHD a scapegoat for frustration over what we perceive as a breakdown in the order of society and family. In a column in The Boston Herald, Boston University Chancellor John Silber rails that Ritalin is "a classic example of a cheap fix: low-cost, simple and purely superficial."
If the nuclear family is going to hell in a handbasket, don?t blame it on parents who turn to medicine to solve medical problems.
Exactly. Like most headaches, ADHD is a neurological problem that can usually be successfully treated with a chemical. Those who recommend or prescribe ADHD medicines do not, as The Weekly Standard put it, see them as "discipline in pill-form." They see them as pills.
In fact, it can be argued that the use of those pills, far from being liable for or symptomatic of the Decline of the West, reflects and reinforces conservative values. For one thing, they increase personal responsibility by removing an excuse that children (and their parents) can fall back on to explain misbehavior and poor performance.
"Too many psychologists and psychiatrists focus on allowing patients to justify to themselves their troubling behavior," says Satel. "But something like Ritalin actually encourages greater autonomy because you're treating a compulsion to behave in a certain way. Also, by treating ADHD, you remove an opportunity to explain away bad behavior."
Moreover, unlike liberals, who tend to downplay differences between the sexes, conservatives are inclined to believe that there are substantial physiological differences ? differences such as boys' greater tendency to suffer ADHD. "Conservatives celebrate the physiological differences between boys and girls and eschew the radical-feminist notion that gender differences are created by societal pressures," says Houston regarding the fuss over the boy-girl disparity among ADHD diagnoses. "ADHD is no exception."
But, however compatible conservatism may be with taking ADHD seriously, the truth is that most conservatives remain skeptics. "I'm sure I would have been one of those smug conservatives saying it's a made-up disease," admits Charen, "if I hadn't found out the hard way." Here's hoping other conservatives find an easier route to accepting the truth.
Read a reaction to this article.
Read Michael Fumento's additional work on ADHD.
Michael Fumento is the author of numerous books. His next book, BioEvolution: How Biotechnology Is Changing Our World, will be published in the spring by Encounter Books.
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Excuse me, I think you forgot to mention the role C.H.A.D.D. and the manufacturers of Ritalin have played in promoting Ritalin. Obviously an important consideration given the fact that the USA consumes 90% of the world's supply of Ritalin.
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Who would argue that stimulant drugs are not a pretty handy performance enhancer for just about everyone? Worthless before your first cup of coffee? Ever grab some no-doze? Any professionals here maybe make it through final exams with the aid of some extra stimulant drugs? Did you know that the U.S. military has been feeding their pilots and oterh personnel amphetamines and downers (go pills and no-go pills) ever since the Nazis developed the cheap means of producing Methamphetamine when their Coca supplies were cut off during WWII?
Sure, kids with difficulty concentrating will benefit from the focus and performance enhancement from stimulant drugs. Everyone does.
We have one group pathologizing behaviors that are not really illnesses and dosing kids who are just fine but who don't fit into their frequently revised vision of how kids are supposed to act. Here's a word from that camp.
http://www.disciplinehelp.com/ (http://www.disciplinehelp.com/)
Then we have this other group who are just as sure that kids today are nothing like kids have always been down through the ages, but drugs-r-bhaaad, m'khay? So we have to BEAT them, isolate them socially, withhold affection, contact and family support in order to bash the little round bastards into the square holes.
Can't we just love them? What's wrong with just loving your kid just they way they are? Is that unfashionable these days?
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Exactly, Ginger...we need to get back to loving our children and that is what I am making room for in this society...I am an adult who managed to get to a healthy space in my life now...My brethren adults who spoke truth to power, where are they? In prison or worse, on medications believing that they can't handle the troubles or the troubled teens in their life.
Keep your head up, children...I am working my butt off for all of you.
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Hi I represent one of those kids from those parents who just loved me the way I was even though I was terribly ill and despereately crying out for help which I didn't recieve until I was a young adult (and which as a result of my parents I had a lot of trouble asking for). I couldn't sleep I couldn't concentrate or focus on a goal even when I wanted to, I became violently irritated because the world seemed to be coming at me from every angle and my brain couldn't filter it out. My parents --bless them, just thought that's how I was. So fast forward into the future I'm in college and of course I want to do well. I sit down to study often (but rarely get anything done) I go to all my classes (but miss about half the class because I can't pay attention) so of course I don't do to well and I become extemely depressed. Long story short some kids have problems and they want help and there are dire consequences if you ignore them. Love them but get them help if they need it.